The Australian is running an interesting story about infiltrating groups of cockroaches with robot cockroaches in order to influence the group’s behaviour – presumeably making it easier for them to be cornered and disposed of. Eventually they expect to be able to prevent sheep from jumping off cliffs by using a robot sheep to influence the flock. Sort of anti-lemminglike, really.
Jean-Louis Deneubourg, the leader of the project in the news story, has long been at the forefront of studying the group behaviour of animals (especially insects). Coincidentally, my thesis references one of his papers on ant behaviour.
